Sources & Verification Policy

Tier 1 — Government of India, state governments, district administrations, statutory bodies (Census, Election Commission, Reserve Bank), official transport/airport/rail sources. Tier 2 — universities, museums, archives, recognized cultural/scientific institutions. Tier 3 — high-quality reference and news sources for context. Tier 4 — community and user contributions, never treated as verified fact without review.

Every factual claim carries at least one source link in-line or in the "Sources" panel opened from the Listen/Translate utility bar. Statistics cite the year of publication and the source institution. Contested claims cite multiple sources or are attributed to a named source.

Facts age at different rates. Officeholders, boundaries, festival dates and government rules are re-checked at least annually. Population and economic statistics are marked with source year. Directory listings (phones, hours, addresses) carry a "last checked" timestamp and are re-verified on a rolling schedule.

A "verified" badge on a listing means we have contacted the owner or checked against an authoritative registry (registrar of companies, health-authority licence, university-grants-commission list) within the past 12 months. A "community verified" badge means multiple readers have independently confirmed the same facts. Absence of a badge does not mean the listing is wrong — only that we have not independently checked it.

Unsourced folklore is labelled "local story" or "oral tradition" and clearly separated from documented facts. Personal opinion pieces (rare on Indias.com) are labelled "opinion" and never appear in encyclopedic reference articles.